


Overwound

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Music RPF, Winger (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Laugh attacks, Nervous, first show, stage fright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 23:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15896709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: It's the first night of Winger's first tour, and Reb is painfully nervous as the call time approaches. Kip helps him to settle down.





	Overwound

It was finally happening. The first performance of Winger -all together -as part of a tour rather than an isolated town performance, and their first outside of New York. The performance, first among many, that had taken a lot of tedious planning to prepare for and that they'd all been dying to finally make happen.

And Reb Beach was beginning to feel a bit like an overwound seven-day chime clock. Enough pent up nerves and energy to where he felt like he could take off running for a week straight, but hung up inside and almost frozen in place too.

He was pacing the backstage area, having already run through the few guitar parts he always felt the need to practice extra ahead of time. Going any longer on that now would only serve to psych him out further. With over four hours to performance time, it was way too early to shower and put stage clothes on, leaving him stuck in place and unsure what to do. They'd made it through soundcheck faster than expected -which made Reb nervous that they'd forgotten something until Kip went down the list of everything that needed to be checked and indeed, everything had been.

That of course only went forth soundcheck items. Everything else, Reb was every bit as nervous about, and only getting more anxious over as time passed.

"Nothing to do?" asked Kip as Reb returned to the lounge area.

"Nothing to do but go stir crazy."

That wasn't entirely true -he could have been outside running around and kicking a ball around with Rod and Paul, but it was raining. Unlike those two, Reb was a little more adverse to playing in the rain.

"You should have brought your skateboard off the bus -that would have been interesting in the back hallways." Kip looked up from where he was stretching his legs out on the floor. He was going through his range of motion exercises for his past-injured knee a few extra times, making sure he wasn't going to push anything the wrong way onstage and hurt himself again. While past the point where he had any limitations on what he was allowed to do safely, Kip was still advised by the medical staff to take precaution prior to extended physical activity. A full set qualified as that, as did an album tour where he'd be doing it every night.

"Not a bad idea if I didn't get lost around all the turns, or it wouldn't drive the crew crazy." Deep down, Reb had to admit it would be fun and a good distraction if he did have it -but dealing with an angry crew member would be his undoing. And getting lost would be embarrassing -just the thought of it made him blush.

Kip shook his head. "Reb, with as much as they go horsing around outside of setup time, they are not going to get mad at you unless you're climbing on stuff they're trying to set up. There's nothing wrong with minor antics."

"Well, I'll remember to bring it tomorrow night and see how I do with that and if it's any better," Reb decided.

"I think we'll all be doing better tomorrow night anyway," Kip replied. "Especially if we're not all lying awake all night like we were. I know I'll be doing better. I'm a little tired for that today."

"That was ridiculous too," Reb groaned. "Because first you were trying to walk around to see if you could break the cycle; Rod got up to get an extra blanket because his comforter was too hot, but the sheet wasn't enough for him. I think -yeah, that was when I climbed out on my ladder to try and figure out if both of you were having trouble sleeping too. And then Paul stuck his head out from under mine asking why we were all getting up before we all realized we were up for the night and probably weren't going to get any sleep!"

Kip grinned wistfully, indeed looking subtly tired from their first night up. "I did tell you that those nights happened every now and then with Alice."

"You weren't kidding when you said it's a little scary the first time with no lights on either. Not that they stayed off for very long." Reb sat down in another chair at the table and sat hunched over with his arms crossed loosely, but held in flat against his stomach.

"Are you still not feeling well?" Kip glanced up again from where he was now tying an elastic resistance band to the front legs of a chair.

"I'm not sure." Reb reached up and tugged on a a good, thick section of hair that he wrapped around his finger, wincing as he did.

"No, don't do that," Kip warned. "Really, don't. All that's gonna do is give you a headache and tense up your neck muscles. You don't want that before a show. It's not going to make you feel better."

Reb gave a short laugh. He watched as Kip put his chair against a wall, stuck his foot through the chair legs, then flexed his knee and held it with the resistance band pushing back against his heel. Out of nervous habit, Reb counted the seconds in his head. Kip didn't start wincing out of discomfort until after a minute and a half, and wasn't starting to slacken yet. Definitely better than a month ago, and last month had been a major improvement over the month before that. He sat down and reversed the motion, extending his leg against the thick strip of elastic.

"Just so you don't freak out, I'm still not planning to land any leaps on this foot yet," Kip assured Reb, noticing his careful watch. "I can't promise I'm not gonna hop up on it though."

"Just don't hurt yourself. Please." He watched Kip perform his reverse resistance exercises, then retreat to the floor to stretch out again.

It was at that moment where Reb felt it hit him again. That tension in his chest dropping down and forming a band of sharp, cutting pain across his middle. He sucked in air through his teeth, leaned forward over his lap, and moaned softly.

Kip looked up with a pained expression.

"Again?"

"Yeah -and I don't know what it is, but it's getting worse," explained Reb. "Third time this hour, and it's driving me crazy. I get myself to feeling like I know I'm ready and I'm trying to stop myself from feeling nervous about not being ready. Then out of nowhere it tenses up and it's cutting through me right here." Reb mimed a line with his hands across his upper abdomen along his lower ribs. "Then my stomach hurts. Maybe a little nauseated, but not really. First time I ran to the bathroom just in case, but by the time I got there, it was already letting up. And it's not that I-"

"No, I know what you're describing -you don't need to tell me you've tried everything to stop it to justify feeling it," said Kip, cutting Reb off before he went through the near-apologetic ramble. "You're nervous. And it sounds like you're kind of getting the same thing I did the first time I was going to perform with Alice. Except to a worse degree. It feels pretty weird, but it should get better with time once you get used to it -even if you still feel it, it won't be as bad. You're a lot more nervous than I get, so it's probably more uncomfortable for you too than it was for me -and since this is the first night, it's especially getting you."

"I can't reason myself out of it like you usually can," sighed Reb, reaching up with a shaky hand and gripping the edge of the table, as somehow it seemed to take the edge off the sudden grip on him. Unless it was starting to back off. 

"I wish I could -it'd be a whole lot easier." Sighing, Reb sat up. It was backing off. It was still there though, and he could tell the next one was going to come sooner just by the way he had butterflies in his stomach from talking about it.

"Sounds like we're going to need to figure out a way to help you calm down so you're not all stressed out every time. Alright, that's it. I gotta lie down for a bit." Kip got up from the floor and tucked the chair back under the table where he'd gotten it.

Reb looked up, alarmed. "You didn't just hurt yourself, did you?"

"No, just feeling the result of you and I being awake all night getting excited. And it's not that I'm feeling really sleepy or weak from it or struggling to sit up like I might if I was really tired. I'm just -I dunno. Not all my energy is there. I'm probably not gonna be feeling too good after the show if I don't do something now. You wanna try lying down for awhile too?"

Reb snorted.

"Kip, if you think I can even try and sit still, let alone lie down and close my eyes on the floor and manage to fall asleep when I couldn't do it last night..."

"You don't have to stay with me if you can't deal with it, but if you want to try. I'm not sure if I'll actually sleep, but I'm gonna lie down and try to relax if nothing else."

Kip walked past the room divider to the other side of the lounge where they had a few extra road cases stacked, and a less formal area with a couch as opposed to chairs around a table. Promptly, Reb followed him. Anything was worth trying by this agonizing point.

"You want the couch, or no? I'm probably just going to get on the floor anyway so I can spread out."

Reb shrugged.

"I don't really know what I want, actually."

"Just do whatever you think is going to be better for what you feel like, okay?" Kip motioned to the floor by the couch and the couch itself to try and convey the difference. "If you feel like you need to stretch out or lie flat, the floor is probably going to work better for you. If you want to lie on your side, which I'm not planning to, I'd recommend you take the couch so your shoulder doesn't freeze up."

Reb curled up on the couch, handing Kip one if the extra pillows. At first, the pressure on his stomach took the edge off the tension ache by hindering the contractions and helped. Before he could get comfortable and try to relax though, it seemed everything else decided to get worse to compensate.

His heart was racing and he felt jittery. Curling in tighter until he ended up in the fetal position, Reb tried to control the fidgeting, and as he did, he felt more anxious -almost like he was suffocating. On top of all that, he felt a nervous sweat breaking out under his hair and on the sides of his face. Folding in was making him feel warmer in addition to everything else.

Flipping over onto his stomach and stretching out, Reb tried to see if lying on his stomach would keep the pain down without all the other negatives. Only to figure out quite fast that the couch was too short for him to do that, and it was hyperextending his back.

_Alright, that's enough._

He finally got up, and taking one of the couch pillows with him, dropped down on the floor and spread out on his stomach against the cool tiles. Cool tiles that seemed to instantly start pulling the unbearable heat out of him.

"That... actually feels good," he noted.

"What's that?" asked Kip. Reb couldn't tell if he was sounding a little sleepy or if it was just the combination of his flat accent and being half muffled by a pillow.

"The tiles feel good. Cool to lie on. It's nice."

"Hey, whatever helps. You're fine if you want to be down here with me."

Reb flipped onto his back to try and cool himself off fully, looking up at the ceiling to see if staring up would help distract him too.

He was met with the sight of two ceiling fans over the backstage area running as fast as they could go.

Immediately, Reb's mind flashed back to the day he'd moved in with Kip a few months back. 

That day had been an endeavor. Sweltering summer heat had ensured that even the easiest things would be unpleasant. The two flights of exterior stairs down from Reb's apartment were so steep that carrying just two smaller boxes at a time was scary. After several trips up and struggling back down with boxes, he would then try cramming them in his car. Until the third trip on which Kip suggested Reb put boxes in the car with each trip and rearranged as necessary, more often than not, Reb realized he'd taken too many boxes outside to fit -which meant a round of swearing and another struggle to take the excess boxes back up the two flights of stairs and back inside. Even without owning much to pack -mainly his guitar gear, clothes, bedding, towels, dishes, and usable items like laundry detergent and canned food that would be wasteful to leave behind -it still seemed to be an overwhelming amount. 

Kip had insisted on helping Reb get boxes inside his place whilst hobbling around on crutches, still not quite ready for weight bearing yet. He had definitely made some interesting maneuvers to carry what he did -which Reb was thankful for despite constantly feeling like he'd had a partial heart attack any time he thought Kip had made a misstep in fear he would hurt himself and set back his recovery. He'd offered to help Reb over at his apartment with taking things down and packing them in the car too, but with the steep, open slatted stairs, Reb had given it an "absolutely not" no matter how hard Kip wanted to push that one. He wasn't taking chances there. On third and fourth trips back and forth that Kip accompanied him, Reb's order was that Kip stayed downstairs and waited for him to bring stuff outside so they could pack the car together.

By the end of that day, they'd gotten everything moved out of Reb's apartment, whether it had been hauled into Kip's, or in the case of the fifth and last run -a single box that had driven them crazy because it felt unworthy of another trip entirely but just would not fit -stored in the car for the night. Kip and Reb had both been worn out and overheated. That resulted in the two flopped down flat on their backs on the cooler tiles of Kip's kitchen floor, with the ceiling fan running there too. It had also resulted in Kip deciding after a minute on the floor to sit up and take almost all of his clothes off right there in the kitchen before laying back down. Alice had later remarked on the phone when he'd called to check in and heard the story that if it weren't for the immobilizing brace on Kip's knee making it more trouble than it was worth, he was quite sure Kip would have had his underwear off too. And with the way Kip sometimes went prancing around wearing nothing but a hand towel around his hips before and after his shower, Reb believed it.

Reb had already been amused by the time Kip flopped back down on the kitchen floor, and then Kip had gotten the idea to throw one of his socks up into the fan blades for fun. It had taken a few tries, then one caught a blade, got flicked around, and landed perfectly in the kitchen sink.

_"I made it!"_ Kip had jokingly cheered as he and Reb watched it land.

That had triggered Kip and Reb to have the laugh attack of the century on the floor. When it had continued until Kip was running tears of laughter and trying to comfort Reb, who was legitimately crying by that point, they decided they weren't going to try and figure out if a sock in the kitchen sink warranted that much amusement. It had been a tedious, stressful day -an emotional one for Reb too, and they'd needed some comic relief.

Trying to relax on the floor backstage now, and feeling a little less tense with the amusing memory in his head, Reb felt a giggle break through him.

Kip rolled over and looked at him as if to silently ask what was so funny.

Reb pointed up at the fan.

"We're both sprawled out on the floor, today's been crazy so far, and the ceiling fan is running. Now I'm questioning if you're gonna start taking your clothes off."

"Oh, no; not again! Now you've gone and done it!" Kip slung his arm out and swatted Reb hard in the shoulder, dissolving in laughter as he rolled back on his stomach and tried to calm himself down by muffling in his pillow.

"Aah-oww!" Reb cried out, voice broken up with giggling.

Then one of the roadies walking in with a questioning expression, as if to wonder why the heck Kip and Reb were sprawled on the floor -Kip on his stomach, Reb on his back with his hands over his face and blushing profusely. From the view of a standing person, it was almost impossible to tell if they were laughing or crying. He walked up to them and looked down, meeting Reb's eyes.

Reb lost it. He burst out with howling laughter so loud that the roadie stepped back, looking a tad apprehensive. That only led to Reb raising an arm and pointing right at the roadie in complete hysterics.

"Reb, I think you just scared him." Kip got serious for a second, looked over his shoulder just to see if he was right, and getting a look at the roadie's face, wheezed hysterically. His palm went down on the floor in front of him with a loud slap, and Reb wondered if the combination of Kip's reaction and the roadie would be the death of him.

"Not sure if I want to know," said the roadie.

"Ohh," groaned Kip, voice shaking. He propped himself up on his elbows, still lying on his stomach, and ran his hands over his face. "No, don't; I'm gonna go onstage with a sore stomach and have to sing with it!"

Reb flipped back onto his stomach and bit his lip so hard that tears sprang to his eyes and he nearly drew blood before his laugh broke free in a loud snort through his nose. Then Kip went back off in deep, chesty wheezes, setting Reb back off in howls.

The roadie turned and walked away, leaving Kip and Reb further in the stitches.

It still took a couple of minutes for them to stop setting each other off. Finally, Kip shook his head and buried his face in his arm, nestling into his pillow again as he got ahold of his senses.

"Oh my goodness... That hurt. Alright, _now_ we're gonna try and settle down."

Reb looked ahead, taking deep, shaky breaths, trying to block out anything that might set him off again now that he'd finally managed to stop laughing -to the great relief of his aching sides.

Kip shifted his arm away from his face just long enough to sneak a peak at Reb.

"You alright?"

Reb let off a less cheerful chuckle that sounded more nervous than anything else, wiping away tears that seemed to have multiplied with the last bout of laughter. "Yeah. I'm trying to be."

"We'll figure it out in time. I'll make sure you're alright."

Reb lay back down on his pillow, closing his eyes, feeling exhausted and almost ready for a power nap after all that chaos. Slipping that nervous chuckle had been a mistake though, and what it had broken loose was preventing him. Now, quieter, nervous laughter tried to rise up from somewhere between his stomach and chest where all the earlier panic had retreated, and carried itself along his spine in light tremors, only revealing itself audibly with erratic breathing.

He felt a warm hand come in contact with his upper back as Kip reached his other arm over and gave what Reb suspected was intended to be a playful pat, but turned into more of a rub, then stopped to just rest there. It was soothing, and Reb found himself sliding over to be closer to Kip and less of an arm stretch away, pulling his pillow along with him. He stopped roughly a foot away, enough space to still stretch out comfortably, but also in a closeness that had a calming effect. Reb released a sigh, beginning to feel the need to move around and fidget dropping off and being replaced with a heaviness in his eyelids.

Kip shifted his hand, not needing to reach over as far, and rested it on Reb's back again.

"You're okay," he all but whispered. By the extra low, quiet tone to his voice and the slow, deep breathing that followed, he was on the edge of falling asleep for sure.

Without thinking, Reb stretched his arm out and wrapped it protectively around Kip's shoulders. As he did, he felt Kip slide his thumb along his back where his hand rested. His vision started turning dark after a few comforting strokes, which seemed to be stopping by then as Kip was fading out too.

Reb awoke sometime about an hour and a half later. Coming back to reality, he felt the sensation of two hands on his back, shaking him from the side so that his whole body jostled. He lifted heavy eyelids, becoming semi-aware of his surroundings again, as well as Paul Taylor kneeling next to him, recognizable by his voice.

"Wakey-wakey!" he said playfully. "We have two hours before we go on, and probably an hour before people start arriving around the place. You two need to get showered and dressed."

Reb then saw his vision clear, as Kip, who had only taken a few gentle pokes to wake up, reached over and pushed his bangs out of his eyes to meet him with his playful smirk.

"You want to get up and get ready?" 

Reb nodded, stretching before pushing himself up from the floor and putting the pillow back on the couch where he'd gotten it.

"Feeling better?" asked Reb, following Kip from the lounge to the dressing room to go get their shower kits.

"Yeah, I feel great now. All ready to go." Kip tilted his head in that questioning way of his. "I think the more important question is 'are _you_ feeling alright'?"

"You know," said Reb, "I actually woke up not feeling nervous at all. I'm feeling a little nervous now, maybe a little jittery but not painful like before. If I'm gonna be nervous every night, this here is pretty good for me -I could deal with this."

"Well," said Kip, pausing in the doorway of the dressing room, "if all goes well onstage tonight and you're feeling okay up until the show, we may have to remember that for if you're struggling again."

Reb shrugged, looking down with the grin he had when he was nervous in a good way. "I guess so. Hopefully it's gonna be alright onstage."

"Don't worry. It will be."

And it was.


End file.
